AA axe 7100+ MAX flights from 2019 schedule

[Just the fax maam]

I just read a memo stating that 7100+ AA 737 MAX flights have just been axed from their 2019 schedule. With only a handful of 737 MAX aircraft in the AA fleet, I imagine this is several months worth of flights now binned completely...?

Posting in case of interest re the MAX, I was unsure of which thread to post in though so please feel free to move to an existing one if appropriate.

[TURIN]

Assuming a five sector day (a guess) and a fleet of 24 aircraft thats about 60 days worth of flights.

[racedo]

Assumming it is just summer schedule that is circa 40 flights a day................ hardly noticeable if you fly JFK to ORD 12 times a day instead of 14.

[pettinger93]

I see in The Times today that Ryan Air are said to be reducing their services from Stansted to Edinburgh and Belfast from around 4 times a day to 2 or 4 times a week. Seems rather drastic but is surmised to be as a result of the 737 MAX delivery delays.

[CW247]

I bet O' Leary's 10 million per Max frame offer is already in.

[Water pilot]

Does anybody think that the MAX will ever fly passengers again? Boeing will have a great fix, I am sure and the plane will be as thoroughly tested as it should have been, pilots will be trained to the Nth degree but who will actually book a flight on one when it is so easy to click the next line down on your browser? I’d probably pay at least $50 to fly on a different plane just not to have my parents worry, and my wife is never setting foot on a MAX (and she used to happily fly in a V-tail Bonanza!). Even if only ten percent of potential customers think that way, in this cutthroat market that spells curtains....

[rog747]

Kayak Travel online booking engine added an ‘Aircraft Type’ Filter After the Second 737 MAX Crash - So you can choose not to fly on one...very handy

[lomapaseo]

Nobody throws away billions of $$

Of course the plane will fly again.

If a PR program doesn't work because of poisoned mindsets, then a fresh coat of paint and a new grandfathered type certificate as a spoonful of sugar will make the medicine go down

[andrasz]

Kayak Travel online booking engine added an ‘Aircraft Type’ Filter After the Second 737 MAX Crash - So you can choose not to fly on one...very handy
Awww, just re-name all the range from -300 to -900 Classics, and make the -8 & -9 the -800 NG and -900 NG
NOW, if B actually does that, witness ye all that it was originally my idea :)

[Tango and Cash]

Once a fix is implemented, the certification authorities lift the grounding (I suspect in unison, at least the FAA won't be the first), and the first few flights are perfectly routine, the media will quickly lose interest, passengers will forget whether they're on a Boeing or an Airbus, and the whole thing will be forgotten by 99.9% of the traveling public.

[Water pilot]

Once a fix is implemented, the certification authorities lift the grounding (I suspect in unison, at least the FAA won't be the first), and the first few flights are perfectly routine, the media will quickly lose interest, passengers will forget whether they're on a Boeing or an Airbus, and the whole thing will be forgotten by 99.9% of the traveling public.
I would hope so but it is new days, the internet is forever. Even back in the stone ages the billions spent on developing the Pinto went up in smoke. Now websites tell you what model of plane you are flying. Every time a MAX has a turnaround because of “smoke in the cabin” due to aiconditioning issues the media will lead with “... and in 2019 two MAX planes crashed...”. And if god forbid there is another one anywhere in the world for any reason.

I’m trying to imagine this from an airline executive’s (or lease company executive) point of view many who are now paying fees on planes that are not producing revenue. This will last, apparently for up to six months according to the latest that I read. Perception is everything and this incident was so badly handled that all the PR flacks in the world will have a hard time putting Humpty Dumpty back together.

I wonder how hard it would be to reconfigure planes in production back to the previous model?

Right now we are planning a trip and as I typed this my wife asked “how about the 737-900? Is it OK?”

[ATC Watcher]

For those of us old enough to remember the DC10 story , this looks similar but also worse to me . (for those who are too young look here : have a look here : dc10 grounding 1979 ) (https://awin.aviationweek.com/portals/aweek/media/dc-10/dc-10-1.html)
Anyway back then the pax voted with their feet afterwards and it took a year or so to fade. But I agree today with social media and instant internet info, this could have a much longer effect . I think a new name will be needed as well. and the marketing value of "Max" is gone for a long time .. I cannot see Ford continuing to calls some of its cars C or S "Max" in the future.

[Johnny F@rt Pants]

I’d probably pay at least $50 to fly on a different plane just not to have my parents worry, and my wife is never setting foot on a MAX

The only problem is that whilst you select the flight you want to go on, there’s nothing preventing the airline you have booked with changing their schedules round and putting a Max on where it was previously A N other type. There’s nothing you can do about it apart from offload yourself, and that’s then going to be expensive.

[Falcon666]

The only problem is that whilst you select the flight you want to go on, there’s nothing preventing the airline you have booked with changing their schedules round and putting a Max on where it was previously A N other type. There’s nothing you can do about it apart from offload yourself, and that’s then going to be expensive.

Just book with an all Airbus Airline—— simples😂

[Superpilot]

I dunno guys. In this age of social media and armchair experts things are very likely to pan out differently. Even my GP was the other day describing with great accuracy the “poor engineering” of the latest 737. Also, I’ve never read so many detailed news articles about anything related to aviation prior to this. Each one covering in detail MCAS and the fact that Boeing clumsily use a single AoA.

[FrequentSLF]

The only problem is that whilst you select the flight you want to go on, there’s nothing preventing the airline you have booked with changing their schedules round and putting a Max on where it was previously A N other type. There’s nothing you can do about it apart from offload yourself, and that’s then going to be expensive.
Yes, and take a few pictures and post on your facebook and tweet, some news channel will find them and the airline will have to scramble the PR specialists! Even better if another pax will take a video of that happening...

[edmundronald]

If the Max gets back in the air uneventfully for a year, it’ll be back to normal. But if another issue was misevaluated during certification, and this leads to another hull loss, then Boeing may well need to use Chapter 11.

basically they are betting the company on a software patch being sufficient to deal with all outstanding issues, when they should spend 3 months going over the aircraft with a fine comb.

Edmund

[Lord Farringdon]

Just book with an all Airbus Airline—— simples😂
Trouble is with all the alliances unless you book a single flight with an airbus operator, you could end up flying code share on anything. Some years ago my wife booked Air NZ Auckland/Adelaide return but on the flight home found the Air NZ return sector had been cancelled. So, she was put on a Qantas 737 to Sydney where she then boarded a Star Alliance Airbus Lan Chile A340 to Auckland!

[Maninthebar]

This has been a textbook FUBAR for Boeing PR

At one level it was never going to end well - Boeing implemented a system that COMPLETELY UNINTENTIONALLY but nevertheless factually caused an upset in which a plane and all its SOB were lost. We have not had the Final Report, but if we know it now, and indeed knew it then, then Boeing knew it even better.

At that point Boeing had the opportunity to 'own up', publicly, big splash, here is what we are doing about it, consider grounding the fleet until it could be demonstrated to be safe. But it chose not to, issuing an AD to the effect that aircrew should already know what they need to about runaway trim.

That was sufficient only in the case that there was not another event. But there was.

Even THEN Boeing did not choose to ground the fleet but it was left to overseas authorities to push the FAA into action.

All this drains confidence from the 'consumer' (including the professional flying community as the threads on this forum demonstrate).

I would say that the time between fix and confidence returning is something like the time from original incident to Boeing appearing to take the issue with "sufficient seriousness" x 4 or 5

And I don't think we have reached that point of inflection yet - the sense given is still of 'we can swiftly provide a fix through a software mod and hope to have the frame re-certified as soon as possible', rather than 'we need to be very very sure that this cannot happen again so WE will not release the aircraft for certification until WE are sure it's right'

[lomapaseo]

This has been a textbook FUBAR for Boeing PR

At one level it was never going to end well - Boeing implemented a system that COMPLETELY UNINTENTIONALLY but nevertheless factually caused an upset in which a plane and all its SOB were lost. We have not had the Final Report, but if we know it now, and indeed knew it then, then Boeing knew it even better.

At that point Boeing had the opportunity to 'own up', publicly, big splash, here is what we are doing about it, consider grounding the fleet until it could be demonstrated to be safe. But it chose not to, issuing an AD to the effect that aircrew should already know what they need to about runaway trim.

That was sufficient only in the case that there was not another event. But there was.

Even THEN Boeing did not choose to ground the fleet but it was left to overseas authorities to push the FAA into action.

All this drains confidence from the 'consumer' (including the professional flying community as the threads on this forum demonstrate).

I would say that the time between fix and confidence returning is something like the time from original incident to Boeing appearing to take the issue with "sufficient seriousness" x 4 or 5

And I don't think we have reached that point of inflection yet - the sense given is still of 'we can swiftly provide a fix through a software mod and hope to have the frame re-certified as soon as possible', rather than 'we need to be very very sure that this cannot happen again so WE will not release the aircraft for certification until WE are sure it's right'

Boeing as a manufacturer has No means to ground a fleet so as to damage the goods that others have purchased. Boeing's responsibility is to provide fixes for known problems with a suitable reccomendation for incorporation (ALL this under the rule of Continued Airworthiness).

As what they knew or didn't know at the time of their initial responses, that is TBD in the onward investigations

The same goes for the FAA who are dependent on Boeing for analysis of the data coming in from a field event and in-house testing, all which take time.

There is an underlying mode of operation that you don't prematurely ground fleets unless you have a path for ungroundings by identifying an unsafe action/design to bring the certificate back into compliance.

Many posters have a sense that simply discussing fatalities equates to instant groundings of whole fleets rather than finding means for restrictions on how they are flown with what fixes..

Personally (without data so just an hunch) I would have restricted the fleet to only fly with crews that were ably to comply with the restrictions needs. Of course that would have taken time to requalify crews but at least that gives the user operator more control over his costs and operations.

from a Sr Fellow in Continued Airworthiness

[PerPurumTonantes]

Boeing as a manufacturer has No means to ground a fleet so as to damage the goods that others have purchased. Boeing's responsibility is to provide fixes for known problems with a suitable reccomendation for incorporation (ALL this under the rule of Continued Airworthiness).

As what they knew or didn't know at the time of their initial responses, that is TBD in the onward investigations

The same goes for the FAA who are dependent on Boeing for analysis of the data coming in from a field event and in-house testing, all which take time.

There is an underlying mode of operation that you don't prematurely ground fleets unless you have a path for ungroundings by identifying an unsafe action/design to bring the certificate back into compliance.

Many posters have a sense that simply discussing fatalities equates to instant groundings of whole fleets rather than finding means for restrictions on how they are flown with what fixes..

Personally (without data so just an hunch) I would have restricted the fleet to only fly with crews that were ably to comply with the restrictions needs. Of course that would have taken time to requalify crews but at least that gives the user operator more control over his costs and operations.

from a Sr Fellow in Continued Airworthiness
You're focussing on facts, regulations and engineering. ManInTheBar is talking about PR, confidence and customers. Sure they could get the fleet flying like you say, but you'd be flying empty planes around.

As regards Boeing grounding the fleet - legally perhaps they can't force a fleet to be grounded. But if they said "hey guys, we're not happy about the safety", then it would be a pretty ballsy operator who would go against that. And again they would be flying a lot of fresh air around in those cabins.

[lomapaseo]

You're focussing on facts, regulations and engineering. ManInTheBar is talking about PR, confidence and customers. Sure they could get the fleet flying like you say, but you'd be flying empty planes around.

As regards Boeing grounding the fleet - legally perhaps they can't force a fleet to be grounded. But if they said "hey guys, we're not happy about the safety", then it would be a pretty ballsy operator who would go against that. And again they would be flying a lot of fresh air around in those cabins.

Agree, that pretty much sums it.

So who will progress and succeed when all is said and done,Science or emotions?

Some of us like our jobs and are willing to succeed and win and that goes for all manufacturers and regulatory bodies

[racedo]

Kayak Travel online booking engine added an ‘Aircraft Type’ Filter After the Second 737 MAX Crash - So you can choose not to fly on one...very handy

If you book with Kayak you have a good chance of not needing to worry about your plane ticket and travel plans.

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/travel/kayakcom.html

[racedo]

Once a fix is implemented, the certification authorities lift the grounding (I suspect in unison, at least the FAA won't be the first), and the first few flights are perfectly routine, the media will quickly lose interest, passengers will forget whether they're on a Boeing or an Airbus, and the whole thing will be forgotten by 99.9% of the traveling public.

Pretty much.

Nobody wanted to fly post 9/11 in Europe. Ryanair launched 1 penny / euro fares but they never caught on, oh wait they flew 140 million people last year.

[tdracer]

As regards Boeing grounding the fleet - legally perhaps they can't force a fleet to be grounded. But if they said "hey guys, we're not happy about the safety", then it would be a pretty ballsy operator who would go against that. And again they would be flying a lot of fresh air around in those cabins.

You'd be surprised what some operators ignore from the manufacturer. Boeing has three classes of Service Bulletin - 'normal', 'significant' (that's not the term they use but I can't recall the exact term off hand), and "ALERT". Years ago I saw some statistics on fleet incorporation within the recommended time (S/B usually say something like 'next 'x' check', 'within 12 months', etc.). For normal service bulletins it was barely over 50%, and for ALERT (which by definition are safety related) it was in the mid 80% range unless it was AD'ed (which most are, especially now days) in which case it was in the mid 90% (but not 100%).

As for passengers shunning the MAX, racedo's post 9/11 comment is spot on. I recall several people who stated at that time, categorically, they would never travel by air again but were flying again within a year - most probably don't even remember they said that. Given that probably half the traveling public don't know what kind of aircraft they are on, and will give up 5" of leg room for 3 hours to save $5, the MAX won't have to keep it's nose clean for too long before most people pretty much forget the whole thing.

[Pilot DAR]

Boeing as a manufacturer has No means to ground a fleet so as to damage the goods that others have purchased. Boeing's responsibility is to provide fixes for known problems with a suitable reccomendation for incorporation (ALL this under the rule of Continued Airworthiness).

I see it differently: If Boeing chose to issue the highest level of service bulletin asking operators to not operate the aircraft for safety reasons, pending resolution, and then asked the FAA to make it mandatory by AD, I expect that there would be an AD issued to ground the FAA regulated fleet within hours, and much of the world's fleet would be similarly regulated shortly thereafter. What regulator would decline to ground a fleet at the manufacturer's request with good cause?

Yes, Boeing, as any manufacturer, is required to technically support their product, after they have taken any action necessary to assure safety.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

I find it amazing that just four years after a German airline pilot murdered 150 people by flying his Airbus into an Alp on purpose that the general public simply don’t remember it happened, which airline, where or when. The brand just carried on.

It will be fixed. Four years from now the General Public won’t even recall there was a crash in Ethiopia or what version of Airbus 737 it was.


WWW

[lomapaseo]

I see it differently: If Boeing chose to issue the highest level of service bulletin asking operators to not operate the aircraft for safety reasons, pending resolution, and then asked the FAA to make it mandatory by AD, I expect that there would be an AD issued to ground the FAA regulated fleet within hours, and much of the world's fleet would be similarly regulated shortly thereafter. What regulator would decline to ground a fleet at the manufacturer's request with good cause?

Yes, Boeing, as any manufacturer, is required to technically support their product, after they have taken any action necessary to assure safety.

Agree that in most cases such a recommendation by Manufacturer would get the attention of the Faa towards mandating an emergency AD (BTDT), but the FAA has additional requirements to live under before taking an action to ground a fleet. After all the manufacturer must have provided what they thought was a good enough fix else they wouldn't have offered it for an AD. In the end it's the operators who resist groundings as they convince the FAA that there pilots feel the fix will work for them.

When I thought a product fix was not available I could ask the FAA to restrict fleet operations under specific condition and the operators would push back to the point where they promised their own fix without an FAA restriction..

Lots of people in this decision process

[DaveReidUK]

I find it amazing that just four years after a German airline pilot murdered 150 people by flying his Airbus into an Alp on purpose that the general public simply don’t remember it happened, which airline, where or when. The brand just carried on.

The brand certainly did not carry on.

[Maninthebar]

In neither 9/11 nor the Germanwings tragedy were the brands implicated.

Here both the type and brand are central.

Boeing needed and still need to 'own' this

[TSR2]

The vast majority of the travelling public will not have a clue or even care which airline let alone aircraft they will be travelling on.

[atakacs]

on a more immediate topic how are the current operators coping? I would be surprised that there would be hundreds of non MAX 737 available on short notice to provide for the lost capacity? and even so who is covering the inevitable costs?

[Water pilot]

The problem is how to get to the “fly the plane for a year or two with no incidents” part. The airliners will not want to fly an empty plane and unlike 9/11 the public can easily chose to flya different one.

I don’t think a software patch will cut it, we all have experience with software patches.

I think the best thing to do is either redesign the AOA sensors or add more of them, even if not “medically necessary”. A sensor that could perform a physical self test may be an approach to consider, built in sense points (led? Magnetic?) to verify that the vane is pointing more or less where we think it is.

Of course fixing the areodynamics would be the best solution, perhaps a flap welded on somewhere or the like.

[neila83]

I find it amazing that just four years after a German airline pilot murdered 150 people by flying his Airbus into an Alp on purpose that the general public simply don’t remember it happened, which airline, where or when. The brand just carried on.

It will be fixed. Four years from now the General Public won’t even recall there was a crash in Ethiopia or what version of Airbus 737 it was.


WWW

A strange comparison. There isn't much risk anyone is going to end up flying with the cause of that accident.

We are frankly in uncharted waters in terms of how the public react if/when it is returned to service. It's the first time something like this has happened in the social media age. And the coverage of it has been more thorough in terms of technical details of the aircraft than anything I've seen before.I suspect there could be a significant prolonged effect on passenger preferences. The fact that an engine like Kayak is allowing passengers to filter out specific aircraft will have a few people sweating, since there's only 1 aircraft I can imagine anyone choosing to filter out...

[neila83]

The vast majority of the travelling public will not have a clue or even care which airline let alone aircraft they will be travelling on.

Considering I've received jokes from my completely non-aviation interested friends describing anything dysfunctonal as a MAX I on't think this is the case this time. One friend said with all the Brexit chaos Britain is currently the MAX of countries. I'd say some pretty big damage has been done.

[ph-sbe]

Even my GP was the other day describing with great accuracy the “poor engineering” of the latest 737.

...

Each one covering in detail MCAS and the fact that Boeing clumsily use a single AoA.

One might argue that if the engineering is so poor that even your GP can make well-founded comment on it, the engineering was indeed.... rather poor.

However, as with many aviation incidents, the industry is once again using this to get better. The all-too-comfy relationship between manufacturers and certification authorities are exposed by the media, and rightfully so. The poor engineering is being addressed and serves, unfortunately once again, as a reminder that redundancy is necessary on passenger aircraft.

Personally I would have no problem to fly the MAX in the future. Not so much because because I'm a B-fanboy, but because they learned a very, very expensive lesson (both in terms of lives lost as well as monetary damage), which makes this lesson one they will not forget any time soon.

In a different career I once observed a mechanic making a very expensive mistake, causing a small manufacturing company tens of thousands of dollars. He thought he was going to get fired, but his boss saw it from a different angle. The company just paid for a very expensive lesson, so the mechanic was now worth more than before as it is highly unlikely that he would ever make that mistake again. Obviously in a company like Boeing this does not translate 1:1 as eventually the bean-counters will take over again. But for now, engineer depts will have a bit of leverage against their bean-counter counterparts in their wishes to provide quality, not cheap products.

[Matt48]

I would happily fly on one, so long as it wasn't a third world airline, which I avoid anyway.

[Matt48]

The problem is how to get to the “fly the plane for a year or two with no incidents” part. The airliners will not want to fly an empty plane and unlike 9/11 the public can easily chose to flya different one.

I don’t think a software patch will cut it, we all have experience with software patches.

I think the best thing to do is either redesign the AOA sensors or add more of them, even if not “medically necessary”. A sensor that could perform a physical self test may be an approach to consider, built in sense points (led? Magnetic?) to verify that the vane is pointing more or less where we think it is.

Of course fixing the areodynamics would be the best solution, perhaps a flap welded on somewhere or the like.



Re-engine the Max, then it isn't a Max any more.

[Big Pistons Forever]

I intend to avoid the Max when it comes back on line, but my decision has nothing to do with the MCAS, grounding etc etc. The reason I am going to avoid the MAX is because of the crap low profile, hard as a rock, massively uncomfortable seats everyone is putting in them. :ugh:

[Matt48]

The only problem is that whilst you select the flight you want to go on, there’s nothing preventing the airline you have booked with changing their schedules round and putting a Max on where it was previously A N other type. There’s nothing you can do about it apart from offload yourself, and that’s then going to be expensive.

Nailed it.

[Bend alot]

I would happily fly on one, so long as it wasn't a third world airline, which I avoid anyway.

Ethiopian Airlines had a pretty good safety record, a very good one if you remove the hijackings.

A quick look it seems American Airlines has more fatalities than Ethiopian.

As far as the public go other than the 74 - 73,75,76 will not mean much to the pax - but that "MAX" will need to go. It is far too easy to remember that word.

As for Boeing SHAME on you, for the way you tried (and failed) in implementing MCAS and trying to "hide" it's impact/s from crew. This from what I can see certainly requires extra and detailed training from the other 737 aircraft.

[neila83]

I would happily fly on one, so long as it wasn't a third world airline, which I avoid anyway.

All I can say is you're missing out on a lot. Ethiopian airlines have carried me to some quite incredible places, that if you won't fly on a 'third world airline' you will never be able to enjoy. As mentioned their safety is extremely good and they are generally considered a well run airline with no reason to fear anymore than 'first world' airlines. Apologies if you weren't originally including Ethiopian in that statement.

The performance of their pilots in ditching the 767 in the ocean while fighting off highjackers also deserves Sully like praise that it never gets because not USA. Most would have survived too if we'd known then to tell people not to inflate their life jackets before leaving the aircraft. I would have absolutely no problem getting on one of their planes. But a MAX with any airline, yes I would have a problem.

[tdracer]

A quick look it seems American Airlines has more fatalities than Ethiopian.

Not trying to diss Ethiopian, but that's not a particularly valid comparison, given AA is roughly 10 times the size.

[Bend alot]

Yes but it also has 10 x the access to things such as parts, 10 x (quality and numbers)of the ancillary service providers, 10 times the pool of pilots and maintenance personal.

If you have AA and EA both needing 100 pilots, and both paying remuneration of $300,000 - where will the top 100 candidates go? if they receive offers of employment with both airlines.

So while certainly not an apples for apples comparison. Ethiopian has done very well in the challenging environment it operates in, and that environment is vastly different to the AA environment.

* Mostly my comment was in the use of 3rd World, in a way that suggests a quality status structure as opposed to what it actually means.

[FlightDetent]

Ethiopian airlines.... [my delete].... As mentioned their safety is extremely good and they are generally considered a well run airline with no reason to fear anymore than 'first world' airlines.
neila83, those of us who read and tried to learn from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_409 will find it hard to sign your statement.

Apart from what has actually happened (near identical to this tragedy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Airlines_Flight_604)), the then PR reaction from them was a stone cold denial. It is quite a few years ago, and surely things must have moved forward since then. As they would in any other enterprise.

At the same time, the sheer amount of flight hours the Capt. of the MAX aircraft amassed in his so sadly short career would be illegal workload in EU or US.

[FlightDetent]

Bend alot I find your note about financial resources available and the size of the pilot talent pool relevant.

[Bend alot]

I will add that only a "3 crew" seems to have been able to handle such a problem - room for thought! has several meanings!!